7. GRE took note of the progress of the Informal Working Group “Simplification of the Lighting and Light-Signalling Regulations” (IWG SLR) and of its forthcoming meetings. The secretariat informed GRE about the guidance provided by the United Nations Office for Legal Affairs (OLA) and WP.29 on different options for the so-called Horizontal Reference Document (HRD) (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/1116, WP.29-166-18 and GRE-74-15). In particular, OLA had pointed out that using a new part B of Regulation No. 48 as HRD would contradict the terms of the 1958 Agreement. With regard to establishing a new Resolution, OLA had indicated that Regulations can only be amended in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 12 of the Agreement and that a Resolution cannot be employed to amend a Regulation. OLA had also proposed, as an alternative solution, to amend the 1958 Agreement with a specific procedure applicable in those cases when an amendment to one Regulation would affect the application of other Regulations.

8. The expert from EC was of the view that the alternative solution proposed by OLA would bring no results, in view of its complexity and the advanced stage of work on Revision 3 of the 1958 Agreement. He also expressed concerns about the regulatory status of a new Resolution outside the legal text of the 1958 Agreement. The expert from UK shared these concerns. Various experts raised questions on using dynamic or static references to HRD in the individual device Regulations. GRE noted that dynamic references could provide more benefits in terms of simplifying the text, but some Contracting Parties might prefer static references for legal reasons. GRE also wondered about the correlation between amendments to HRD and supplements or new series of amendments to individual device Regulations, including transitional provisions. GRE requested IWG SLR to address the identified issues and to report to the next session on its findings.

9. On behalf of IWG SLR, the expert from IEC introduced a draft Resolution on the common specification of light source categories (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/GRE/2015/28 and GRE-74-06), proposals for simplifying Regulations Nos. 37, 99 and 128 by moving data sheets for various light sources from these Regulations to the Resolution as well as some further modifications (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/GRE/2015/25, ECE/TRANS/WP.29/GRE/ 2015/26, ECE/TRANS/WP.29/GRE/2015/27, GRE-74-03, GRE-74-04, GRE-74-05, GRE-74-17, GRE-74-18 and GRE-74-24). The experts from Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and EC delivered a number of remarks on these proposals, mainly of a terminology nature. The expert from France also requested that all modifications to Regulations Nos. 37, 99 and 128 be clearly explained in the “Justification” section of the respective documents.

10. GRE stressed the need to ensure the high quality of these documents before submitting them to WP.29 and requested IWG SLR to update the proposals based on the comments received and to submit a revised package for consideration at the next session. Some experts pointed out that the guidance by OLA on establishing a new HRD Resolution (see para. 7 above) was also applicable to the draft Resolution on light sources. GRE recalled that this approach had already been endorsed by WP.29 at its November 2014 session. Nevertheless, GRE requested its Chair to ask WP.29, at its forthcoming session in November 2015, to reconfirm this mandate in the light of the OLA guidance.